For centuries, humans have erected fences and other barriers to keep small animals in or outside of yards, dwellings, food storage areas and the like. Most small animals, such as rats, mice, snakes and other reptiles, however, can crawl and climb and are therefore able to easily circumvent simple fences. In recent years, the ability to exclude small animals from certain areas has taken on great significance from economic, ecological and safety perspectives. For example, certain sensitive municipal or utility sites, such as power substations or water reservoirs are adversely affected when small animals circumvent the fencing placed around such areas and short circuit electrical equipment or otherwise contaminate the equipment, precipitating a site-wide shut down, which may result in blackouts, and/or power or water shortages for the surrounding communities and industries. Less catastrophically but no less significantly, barriers for keeping wildlife and other small animals in or out of an area are useful in residential areas, picnic areas, wildlife sanctuaries, pool areas, zoological and botanical gardens, and agricultural lands.
In addition to providing an effective barrier against small animals, any fencing or barrier must be have a structure that is capable of enduring a full range of weather effects with little or minimum maintenance, including high winds, hurricane winds, ice, large volumes of snow and exposure to UV rays.
In view of these challenges, there remains a need in the art for a fence or barrier system that is easy to assemble even in remote locations, but is effective in excluding small animals from the enclosed area and capable of withstanding extreme weather conditions with little or no maintenance.